When You're Missing Home
by WinchestersDollFace
Summary: The Winchester brothers give a girl, Rory, a ride into town when her car breaks down on the side of the road, but their chance meeting doesn't end there. When it is revealed that she is a hunter, the boys wonder if she could help them find their father while she realizes that hunting with them was meant for her. Dean/O.C Set season1
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Chance Leads to Destiny**

**Denver, Colorado**

Rain pattered on the darkened window that belonged to the sixth room of a Sunny Days Inn. There was one occupant in this room, a young woman, Rory, who was currently sprawled out on the bed, allowing her body to rest after a hard day's work. She felt as if her muscles were loosening, sinking into the mattress. She was in desperate need of a shower, realizing this only after she smelled herself and scrunched up her nose in response to the unpleasant body odor. Her light brown hair hadn't been washed in three days and the makeup which had been applied to her blue eyes was smeared. However, her body didn't liken to the idea of moving. She began to reason that if she fell asleep now, she would have more energy to shower in the morning. She closed her eyes, deciding that she wouldn't even change into her pajamas. She would sleep in her ripped jeans, t-shirt and boots.

Just as her mind was completely quiet and her eyes were too heavy to open, there was a loud pounding on the door of her room. Rory didn't find this unusual at first, but then she recalled that she wasn't supposed to have late night visitors. Her location wasn't supposed to be known to anybody. Fear slowly filled her and hope that whoever, or whatever, was on the other side of the door would leave, slowly left her.

_You cannot be afraid, _ran through her head as she stood from the bed, walking to her duffel bag to retrieve a knife.

Her hands were shaking as she attempted to unzip the bag and her breathing was unsteady. She didn't want to be this scared, but only God knew what was on the other side of that door. Before she could find the knife, the door to her hotel room flew open and the woman screamed as a middle aged man with dark, curly hair stepped in.

"I've searched everywhere for you," the man smiled at the woman, who, despite her erratic breathing, was relieved to see him.

"You're a psychic and you couldn't figure out I was here?" she let out a weak laugh.

The man was her Uncle Aidan and he was, or had been, in search of Rory . The reason being for this hunt was that his niece had run away from their home on the night of her twenty third birthday, dropping out of medical school to follow the steps of her deceased father's in hunting. Normal people would be under the impression that she went out into the woods and stalked an animal, but to her it meant preventing evil from spreading. She hunted the monsters that nobody believed in, but she was terrified of them. Out of all the hunters she had met, she was the weakest link because she was a coward. Her fear was why she had left home in the first place. She had wanted to become a better hunter, so she hit the road in a silver Toyota.

"Are you joking?" Aidan questioned her. "You had a witch cast a spell to stop me from being able to see you in my visions."

Rory chuckled to herself as she remembered her encounter with the witch, "Elsa was something else. Sends her regards, by the way."

"Aurora York, this is _not_ a laughing matter," Aidan scolded her. "You went to a _monster_ to get away from me."

Rory rolled her eyes at her full name, "Nobody calls me by that name, Uncle Aidan and yes, I did. I did it to make sure you wouldn't come running after me, but I see that it hasn't deterred you in any way."

Her uncle looked at her, his brown eyes filled with scrutiny and worry. Rory loved Aidan, she was grateful that he had given his life up at twenty to raise her, but he worried too much over her. She was aware that she was the only family he had left and would do anything to shield her from harm. Rory would do anything to protect her uncle from harm too, but she couldn't be treated as if she were five years old with this job, which is what Aidan did. He would take her on a hunt to teach her that she had to watch her back, but keep her in the car, telling her that she was helping by making sure the car was running.

"What are you thinking Rory? You think going off by yourself has taught you anything? It looks as if you haven't slept in days, you smell worse than a sewer and you're scared more now than you were a year ago," Aidan pointed out all of her current imperfections, taking a step toward her duffel and picking it up. "Let's go, I'm taking you home."

"I'm thinking I want mom and dad to be proud of the daughter they died protecting. I'm thinking I want to live up to the York name. I'm thinking that I need to know what killed my parents because I'll go insane if I don't," Rory fired at her uncle, not budging a foot.

Aidan sighed, "Rory, _please_. Come home."

She shook her head in defiance, "I can't Uncle Aidan. I have to find out what it was that killed mom and dad."

"Before you blocked yourself from my gift, I saw something that troubled me," Aidan revealed. "It wasn't clear enough, but I saw two men, one of which brings you immense joy as well as pain. There are things which trouble me about these men. I saw death and suffering, Rory . I'm supposed to protect you from that, I promised your parents."

Rory stared at her uncle, confusion spread across her face like butter on bread. She had to restrain herself from laughing at his confession. Two men would be in her life? One of which would bring her immense joy and pain? That sort of thing spelled out boyfriend to her and she already had that kind of trouble back home. Then Aidan talked about death? _That_ Rory was terrified of, but she couldn't let it stop her from doing this. Everybody died, some people just left early.

"I'm scared, Aidan," Rory planted her feet. "Scared as hell, but I have to do this and I'm not going home."

"You're my niece, I love you more than anything in this world, I came here for you and you won't even budge? Doesn't it faze you that you have a life back home? Your friends? Tom is planning on leaving Holly to search for you, he thinks you're missing. What do you want me to tell him?" Aidan brought up the aforementioned ex-boyfriend.

He was trying to make her feel guilty about leaving Tom, but it wasn't working. Tom had been a wonderful man, a comic cartoonist for the Detroit paper. Rory met him by chance at a store where they exchanged phone numbers and she really fell for him. Another girl had been in the mix, though, and Rory had to leave. It hurt too much to wonder if she was good enough for him, so when she left, she did so without an explanation for Tom.

"Well go home, Aidan, and tell him the truth. Tell him I'm hunting monsters and he's the next one on my list," Rory replied with anger coating every word she said.

She could see her uncle was distressed, but she wasn't planning on leaving for someone who hadn't made her a priority. She wasn't going to cave that easily. Why couldn't Aidan see that she needed to do this?

The older man sighed, placing her duffel bag on the motel bed and pulling out a large knife he kept concealed in his boot. He extended it to her, something that surprised Rory . This knife was his most prized possession. It belonged to her grandfather before he passed it down to her dad, who, as he was dying, gave it to Aidan. Now, apparently, it was being handed off to her. Rory could only stare, her face filled with confusion.

"You're an adult, I can't make you come home, but I can give you something that means something to the York family," he told her as she accepted the knife with a slight smile.

"Aidan this is," she paused, not knowing what to say.

"Stay safe, Rory ," Aidan smiled at her before he turned around and left the room, closing the busted door as best he could.

She let out a tired sigh, examining the knife. It was big, the blade was made of pure silver and engraved with beautiful markings. Aidan passing it down meant a lot to her, but it also made her nostalgic. She was no longer the innocent, little girl he had to raise. He had accepted that she was a huntress. She couldn't say she was scared. She couldn't back out of any hunts now. This was her life.

"Why is he sending us out to the middle of nowhere?" Sam Winchester complained to his older brother, Dean, who was driving his 1967 Chevy Impala outside of Grand Junction.

Dean glanced at his younger sibling momentarily. Sam had soft facial features and kind, hazel eyes that encouraged a person to talk to him. Of course Dean knew that if one _did_ talk to Sam, he was one sassy son of a bitch. The pair was driving to coordinates their missing father left behind for them. They were going to go there and see if they were able to find the old man there. According to Sam though, there was nothing there. The middle of nowhere, though, was a good place to hide from people as well as demons and monsters. They couldn't hurt you if they couldn't find you. Dean stepped on the gas just as he passed a sign that read "Welcome to Lost Creek, Colorado" and made a turn into the town.

Once he finished a turn he saw a silver Toyota on the side of the road, the hood was lifted and smoke was escaping from the top. At first he didn't think of stopping, but then he saw that a girl that stepped from behind the hood, opened the door and grabbed a duffel. She had light brown hair that reached her shoulders and bangs. She was wearing a oversized sweater coupled with skin tight jeans and knee high boots. To say the least, this girl had captured his attention. He passed her just as she began walking in the direction they were driving in, so he pulled onto the shoulder further ahead, much to Sam's confusion.

"You're asking for dates on the side of the road now?" Sam questioned, his voice full of scrutiny.

Dean glanced at his brother once again, "Look at her Sam, so lost and vulnerable. She'll be so happy to get a ride from me she'll be the one asking me for a date."

"What if this girl is a crazy psychopath?" Sam pointed out as Dean rolled his eyes.

"Dude, we smoked a ghost a week ago, I think we can handle Norman Bates. Stay in the car… unless she tries to waste me, in which case, you come out and Van Damme her ass," Dean countered, opening his car door and turning around to face the girl, who continued walking toward the Impala. "Hi there. I see you're having car trouble." The girl smiled warmly at Dean, who could now see that her eyes were blue.

"Yeah, I tried fixing it, but I wasn't really into cars, so I didn't know what I was looking at," she answered.

Dean stepped towards her, "I could take a look at it, if you like?"

"Only if you promise you won't knock me out, stuff me in your trunk and murder me later on," she said.

"That is quite an imagination… but scouts honor," Dean raised his right hand, making his way towards her car. "You know, not many pretty girls, such as yourself, travel alone."

She laughed just as they neared her car, "So just because you're under the impression I'm pretty, I shouldn't travel alone?"

Dean shrugged his shoulders in reply, "There's a lot of scary things out there and as cute as you are, I wouldn't want to see you on the eleven o' clock news."

"You'd be surprised at some of the scary things I've seen," she quietly remarked.

He began to examine the engine, pleased with the way the conversation was flowing. He couldn't see anything wrong with the engine, but he did notice a cracked hose. He immediately knew that the issue was an evaporative leak, hence the smoke-like effect.

"Did you happen to see this hose right here?" he asked, pointing to it as she came closer.

"I see it now, thanks to you, rural road savior," she stated, not in a flirty manner, but in a way that told Dean she was grateful he showed up.

"I'm pleased you think so, but you might want to stash the comment for later, your car overheated, making the liquid turn to gas and the crack in the hose is letting it get away," Dean gave her a quick lesson in fuel volatility. "I can give you a ride into town if you want?"

The girl looked Dean over, then glanced at his car. He could tell she was still unsure on whether she could trust him or not.

"Who's in the car?"

"Oh, that's my brother Sam, we're on a road-trip," he explained with a smile, trying his hardest to charm the stranger. "I'm Dean Winchester by the way."

"Rory York," she introduced herself. "And a ride into town would be great. From what I hear I need a new hose."

"Rory? That's an unusual name for a girl," he remarked.

"I assure you, it's short for something stupid," she told Dean, her serious demeanor making him laugh.

Dean led her to the Impala and opened the back door for her. Rory quickly hopped in, allowing Dean to close the door and sit down in the front seat. By the time he slammed his door shut, Sam and Rory were already acquainted.

"You live here, Rory?" Sam inquired after shaking hands with her.

"No, I'm from Detroit. I heard the forestry here was amazing, so came down here in the Toyota," Rory explained.

"Michigan?" Dean asked as he started the Chevy, remembering the Wendigo, a horrible monster, in Northern Michigan he hunted.

"Yup," Rory answered. "Raised, not born, though. That was New Orleans. What about you guys? Dean mentioned you were on a road-trip. Where are you from originally?"

"Born in Kansas, raised kinda' everywhere," Sam informed her.

"You guys move around a lot?" Rory questioned as Dean glanced in the mirror and saw her aimlessly digging around in her duffel bag.

"It's kind of a long story, but yeah, never in the same spot for too long," Dean told her, the town's outskirts coming into view. There was an old gas station to their left and a cluster of buildings, built in a similar fashion. Dean spotted a small, yellow diner to the right and wondered if they served good pie.

"Drop me off there, if you don't mind," Rory pointed at the diner that Dean had noticed a second earlier. "If you guys aren't in a rush, I'd love to buy you lunch."

She didn't have to tell Dean twice, if there was free food involved, he was down with anything. He pulled into the miniscule parking lot that belonged to the diner and found a free spot that he slowly drove the Impala into. Rory was the first out of the car, she walked towards the steps of the diner and patiently waited for the Winchesters, playing with a crappy, red phone. Before the older brother could leave the car, he noticed a mocking smile on Sammy's face.

"What?" he asked, opening the door.

"Nothing, I just feel weird," Sam stated, standing up and following Dean to the diner. "We should be looking for dad, not flirting with pretty women."

"It's one girl, Sam, that _I'm_ flirting with and there's free food involved," Dean whispered as they neared Rory, who looked up at the brothers with a grin. "Now that seems like a pretty sweet deal to me."

With those final words, the brothers followed the beautiful stranger they saved on the side of the road into the diner. Neither the Winchesters nor Rory suspected that this chance meeting would lead to a lifetime of a bond that would not be severed through petty disagreements, long distances, the supernatural or, even, death. None of them knew that each would cause one another happiness, pain, safety, comfort, tears, smiles, for one's destiny often rooted itself in chance occurrences.


	2. Chapter 2

**The title of this chapter is based on a tumblr post, for those who understand, yay, for those who don't sorry for sounding silly!**

**Chapter 2 : Spoopy Men**

Rory found herself sitting across from two brothers, the Winchesters, in a small diner. The men had given her a lift into town when they saw that she was stranded on the side of the road. One was named Sam. He had messy, brown hair that was considered long for a man. His eyes were hazel and they made Rory feel as if he wanted her in his company. Earlier, when he stood up from the car, Rory had been able to see that he towered over her.

Dean Winchester was the second man, the older of the Winchesters and he had been hitting on Rory ever since he stepped out of his Chevy to help her. While she wasn't looking for anybody ever since Tom left her somewhat of a wreck, Rory found Dean incredibly attractive. He had a square jaw, some scruff growing, but not scruffy enough to be scratchy, Rory believed it was called "shadow". He had short, dark blonde hair while his eyes were a green she had never seen on another person before and she had to admit, she felt better about herself when they had looked her over. He wasn't as tall as Sam, but he was taller than Rory and he sported worn out a brown leather jacket, worn out jeans with boots.

"One salad," an older waitress pulled her out of her thoughts, placing a plate with lettuce, tomatoes and other rabbit food in front of Rory before moving on to Sam. "One classic burger."

"Thanks," Sam mumbled.

"And a chili dog, a burger, and fries for you," the waitress placed Dean's meal on the table as Rory glanced up at the waitress, noticing that the diner's cashier was staring at her. He had deep lines in his face from aging and stringy, gray hair that reached his shoulders. He reminded her of Riff-Raff from _Rocky Horror Picture Show. _Before Rory looked away, he gave her a creepy smile, almost as if he knew who she was. She brushed it off, returning her attention to the company she was in.

As soon as the waitress walked away, Rory saw Sam smirk at Dean, glance at the plates of food the older Winchester had ordered and then chuckle as he shook his head.

"What?" Dean asked,

"Do you always eat like it's your last meal?" Sam asked.

"I like food," the ruggedly handsome man tilted his head as he bit his burger.

"If it's what you love," Rory said, a slight smile on her face as she stabbed the lettuce leaves with a fork.

"Ah," Sam sighed, glancing up from his plate with a defeated look before standing up. "They forgot the ketchup. I'll be back."

Rory liked Sam, he seemed like a lost puppy that would defend those he loved without any qualms. His brother, while making her feel gorgeous with the flirty glances, gave off the vibe of a man who had a different girl each night. That combined with her problems with Tom prevented her from considering anything. Despite the womanizer vibe and her own reservations, she was having a delightful time with the brothers. While waiting for their food Dean had made a couple jokes at Sam's expense that Rory couldn't help but laugh at, he asked her about her vacation (which he didn't know wasn't an actual vacation) and had called a tow truck for her. Sam had retaliated with a few, hilarious jokes about Dean and talked about nerdy things. The Winchesters bounced off of each other, bringing up inside jokes, yet keeping her involved in the conversation.

"Can I ask you something?" Dean began as Rory nodded her head in agreement. "Why are you out here by yourself?"

She hadn't planned on somebody asking her that in greater detail. Usually whatever story she gave people, they believed it and didn't pry any further. It was like Dean knew she was a hunter, albeit an awful one, and wanted to hear her admit it.

"I don't have any friends," Rory answered, which technically was true.

Growing up under the care of a man who had no idea how to raise a girl had made Rory an awkward child. Aidan had stuffed her in t-shirts, the only time she had worn dresses was for holidays or special occasions. He never learned how to braid her hair or help her do her makeup because it wasn't his thing. It wouldn't have been so bad if the other girls with ribbons in their hair wouldn't have made fun of her, calling her "Bori-Rory". High school started and Rory was tired of feeling ugly, she wanted to know how to put on makeup or which clothes made her look like a girl, so she learned. The little beauty revolution had helped her become a social butterfly, but because Rory knew of the things that existed she could never be honest enough with another person to be a real friend. Tom had been something rare in her life, but she had to let him go. No matter how unfair it was to her, she had to leave him to show she was not an option.

"Everybody has at least one person," Dean pushed further.

Rory had people she spent time with, went to the movies and laughed with, but they didn't know who she was or where she came from. She could have told them she came from a family of hunters, but she would have lost the bonds she had worked so hard to make.

"I was a dork, okay? My uncle raised me and treated me as if I were a boy. He shortened Aurora to Rory for God's sake," Rory laughed it off.

"Well, Sleeping Beauty, you don't look like a boy and I still don't believe you don't have anybody you can call a friend, but I'll stop asking," Dean sent her a half smile and Rory could tell, by the look in his eyes, that he was proud of his _Sleeping Beauty _reference.

"I've got you, Dean," Rory jested. "You want to be Phillip? Or maybe one of the fairy godmothers?"

"Don't know who you're talking about," Dean asked, with a knowing smile, letting her in on the fact that he was aware of the Disney stories.

"So I'm sure, you won't mind being Flora the Godmother," she remarked.

"I would never force you to wear pink if you didn't want to," Dean gave himself up as Sam returned empty handed.

"They're out of ketchup," he informed.

"Are you a guy who refuses to eat a meal if it's missing something?" Rory asked, changing the topic she and Dean had been discussing.

"You're wrong there, Rory," Dean interjected. "Sammy's one of those girls who refuses to eat a meal if it's missing something."

Sam rolled his hazel eyes, annoyed with his brother's jokes, "Really, dude? You cry when there isn't any pie around."

"Pie is good, it has everything nice in one slice," Dean rhymed making Rory snort.

"You have to be an English major with that skill," she remarked.

"I'm not Joe College, that's Samantha over here," Dean patted Sam's back as Rory turned her head towards the taller man, who was picking out onions from his burger.

"What are you studying?" Rory asked.

"I was pre-law, I'm on a break for a few months to take a road trip with my _awesome_ big brother," Sam explained, coating awesome with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

"Whoa, I didn't mean to start world war three between you guys," Rory said, holding up her hands in an attempt to prevent them from escalating their "friendly" argument.

"You a college graduate, Aurora?" Dean asked.

"I uh," Rory debated about revealing that she had dropped out of medical school to the two men. "I have a bachelors in biology. I like coming out into place like these to do research in the woods."

Rory was afraid they would want to know the reasons why she left home. In the year she had been hunting, this was the first time she had sat down at a diner with other people. It was the first time she was actually bonding with people, but she didn't want Dean and Sam to think she was

"Miss your tow truck is here," the Riff-Raff look alike snuck up on the trio, talking so low that it made Rory feel uncomfortable.

"Thank you," she replied, keeping a steady tone as she pulled out her wallet from her duffel bag. "Thanks again guys, lunch doesn't even cover how thankful I am that you showed up, but if you need anything I'll be in the woods."

"And if _you_ need anything here is my number," Dean slipped her a piece of paper with a phone number scrolled on it.

"I'll see you guys," Rory smiled before heading towards the front door to find the tow truck.

Dean was staring out a window at Rory who was outside speaking to the man who had towed her crappy car to the diner. He himself was finishing a burger that she had bought him in return for giving her a lift and calling the tow truck for her. As he stuffed fries into his mouth he was allowing Sam to complain about how they should be searching for the coordinates their dad left them. Dean agreed with his brother, but in between jobs he liked to have fun. Rory was the perfect mix of awkward and pretty to be considered fun.

"Are you even listening to me?" Sam finally waved his arm in front of Dean's face. "We're about an hour away from where we're supposed to be and you decide it's a good time to pick up girls?"

"Dude, we're allowed to take breaks every now and then," Dean countered, shoving the younger man's hand of his face.

"So that's what you consider that girl? A break? " Sam sighed. "She's not the typical girl you pick up."

"What the hell do you mean?" Dean asked, arching his brow.

"Okay, Sherlock. She's a nice girl, she finished college and I bet you she's naïve as hell. Oh, and, she didn't smell like she had a long night at a bar-"

"That's because she smelled like some type of flowery perfume, my guess is roses," Dean interjected nodding his head with a grin. "Which happens to be my new favorite scent. It was a nice change from the smell of Budweiser."

"That's exactly my point! Rory isn't not going to sleep with you Dean. A girl like that doesn't do one night stands," Sam explained to his brother, whose ego had been a little hurt.

Dean turned his head towards Sam to ask why he was arguing about this. Instead he noticed that the diner's staff and customers had disappeared. The window through which you could see the cook preparing food revealed that nobody was there, the waitress that had served them their food was nowhere to be seen and the cashier, who had been a complete creep, was gone. Suddenly Dean took in the quietness of it all. He couldn't hear the grill sizzling in the back, no plates were clinking and the sound of utensils hitting each other was gone. It was as if none of it had happened, Sam and Dean had just been sitting there by themselves.

"Dude, where the hell did everybody go?" Dean changed the subject, causing Sam to turn around to inspect the scene.

Suddenly there was a shrill scream from outside and Sam whipped his head towards his brother. They both suspected that it was Rory, both very aware that something had to have been happening in order for her to scream with such terror. The brothers took off from their booth, running outside, prepared to grab guns from the Impala's trunk.

Rory was on the ground, grasping her head and an expression of agony on her face. The tow truck was gone much like everybody in the diner, but there was someone standing over Rory as she dragged herself on the ground. It was the cashier, his long, greasy hair fell over his pointed face as he maniacally grinned at the poor woman, inching closer to her.

"Go to the car, get a gun," he ordered Sam, tossing him the keys to the Impala.

"Did you like that little trick in there?" Dean heard the creep say, confusing him. "The gift of illusion, meant just for you Aurora York."

"Hey!" Dean shouted, running up to the creep, who looked up with crazed eyes.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you son," the man said before everything around Dean changed.

No longer was he outside of the diner, instead he found himself in the middle of the woods, no Sam, no Rory. He spun around, only to be greeted by more trees. He felt his mouth fall open and his face contorted into a bewildered expression.

"Son of a bitch!" he shouted, taking a step forward and tripping over a log.

He heard a gunshot go off, but he couldn't see anything aside for trees and fall foliage, which was beginning to annoy the hell out of him. He turned so that he was laying on his back and everything had returned to normal. He was standing on his two feet, Rory was on the ground, sitting against the Impala, clutching her knees and Sam had a gun in his hands, standing over the now dead cashier. The body, however, didn't bleed. It began to turn gray, and when Dean tapped it with his foot, it was rock solid. The man had turned into a statue.

"What the hell was that?" Dean demanded. "I was here, then I wasn't and now I'm back here?"

"It was an astomi," Rory muttered from the ground.

"A what?" he asked, glancing at Sam to see if he was following the girl's story. His brother had knelt beside the woman who was still clutching her knees.

"The two of you are hunters and you don't know what an astomi is?" she looked up as Dean's eyes widened. How had she figured out that they were hunters?

"How did you know-"

"Sam left your trunk open and I saw the arsenal. Now, I happen to know that's what the trunk of a hunter looks like," Rory said in a matter-of-factly way, shocking Dean, but making him sort of happy. She wasn't as naïve as Sam had thought her to be, she knew about everything they dealt with.

Dean shrugged, then pointed at the rock-man, "Okay, you're a hunter. What the hell is he?"

"Astomi?" Rory repeated herself.

"An astomi?" Sam questioned as she nodded her head.

"Yeah, it's this creature who creates illusions to trap his prey. He reads their minds as he feeds on them, gets off on hearing how scared his victims are," Rory explained to the brothers. "They can fill themselves up on smells, that's why he was in the diner, but their favorite meal is human flesh. It wasn't the wound that killed him, strong smells kill them like rotten food, sulfur, in this case it was the gun powder."

"Huh," Sam let out.

"What're you huh-ing," Dean asked, still in disbelief that Rory was a hunter.

"Why did he want you? I mean out of the three of us, you're the smallest," Sam pointed out, standing up and helping Rory to her feet.

"Honestly, I don't know. It could be because my skin is softer or that I'm weaker," Rory told them as Dean observed that she was shaking. "But the conversation you had in there with the waitress, the people inside, probably even the food were all an illusion."

"So this guy lives in an abandoned diner?" Sam asked.

"No, this diner is real, it's open six days a week. Today happens to be the day that it's closed, so Riff-Raff, here, created an illusion of it being open to lure us in," Rory clarified. "I mean that's what I think at least."

"How do you know about this?" Dean inquired.

"My uncle is a hunter," she answered, as the gears in Dean's head began to spin.

This girl was a hunter, her uncle was a hunter. It was a long shot, but maybe they knew something about his dad. Maybe they could help the Winchester boys find their dad.

"You're coming with us," Dean said. "It doesn't look like you can handle yourself very well."

"No, no, no," Rory shook her head. "It's one thing to sit down and eat food that's not really there, but I'm doing this alone for a reason. I suck at hunting and my uncle didn't do a thing to help me. He told me what was out there, but didn't let me learn how to protect myself. I need to get better in order to feel safe."

"You're gonna get yourself killed if you keep at it alone," Dean remarked, nudging Sam to say something in his favor.

"Rory, I don't know what my brothers thinking, but he's right," Sam began, looking at his brother, trying to figure out what he was up to. "You shouldn't do this on your own. It's a dangerous job."

"But-"

"If getting better at this is what you want, we can help you," Dean offered as her eyes darted from him to Sam, then back to him. "We won't sideline you, we'll help you, but it isn't fair for us to let you off on your own, knowing you suck."

Rory bit her lip, "I'll only go with you guys, if you promise you won't ditch me at the nearest hotel."

"Like I said, we won't sideline you," Dean repeated.

Rory smiled at the brothers, showing off perfect teeth. Dean allowed himself to look her over once more before he let go of the possibility of sleeping with her. Sam had been right about her, she was smart and she didn't deserve his lame attempts to get her into bed with him.

"Let's get to hunting," she said.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Wendigo**

To say Sam felt alone was an understatement. His girlfriend, Jess, had been ripped from his life a week ago by the same thing that had killed his mom when he was a six month old baby. It wasn't fair. A week ago he had been happy; he had been on his way to law school and living with Jess. Now all he wanted to do was to find the thing that did that to her. None of his friends knew the truth about Jess, that a demon had killed her. He couldn't talk to them about it. He couldn't imagine his buddy, Gavin's, reaction if Sam went up to him and said "so, hey, I want to go on this vendetta because some type of monster burned my girlfriend". Gavin would have slowly backed away from him, then made a run for the counseling services at Stanford. Sure, Sam had Dean, but it had been two years since they had last seen each other. The pair was still unthawing the frigid relationship they had.

Then there was the hunter named Rory that had come out of nowhere and whom Dean invited to hunt with them for a reason Sam didn't know. Under normal circumstances, neither brother would invite strangers for the long haul, so Sam knew Dean was up to something. Also, Sam had seen _the look_ on his brother's face. _The _look was when he squinted his eyes, then arched a brow and nodded his head. The younger Winchester knew that this was something Dean did when they were pretending to be somebody else or was trying to get a woman to sleep with him. Dean had exemplified this the previous week when he walked up to a cop and claimed they were Marshalls. The cop immediately pointed out that they seemed too young to be U.S Marshalls to which Dean replied, "Why thank you," and gave the cop _the look. _He did it when he was up to something and Sam wanted to know what.

The Rory girl, they found her stranded on the road with a broken car and saved her from a creature that Sam had never heard of. The monster created illusions, which is how it attacked her and Dean outside of the diner the three of them were at. What bothered him was that it had seen him running to the Impala to retrieve a weapon, yet it didn't do anything to him. If it had tried to, it didn't affect Sam the way it did Dean and Rory. Were they just that unprepared?

"So, how much of the things you told me at the diner were bullshit?" Rory spoke after a long silence. The trio was in the car, all three sat up front since the seats of the Impala allowed for it. They were making their way to the coordinates John Winchester had left his sons in a journal.

"We didn't lie to you Rory. We're brothers, we drive around in this car, we don't have a home," Sam assured her. "We just avoided telling you that we were hunters… Wait a second, did you lie to us?"

"Not technically, I have a bachelors in bio, but I went to med school with it," she informed them. "Dropped out to do this."

Sam suddenly pieced the puzzle together. He had wondered why Rory had become a hunter. She didn't exactly fit the profile of a hunter with nice jeans, her makeup done, and perfectly styled hair. His question, though, seemed to be answered and all it took was for her to explain that she had left school. Sam would be the first to admit that he would rather be a lawyer than a hunter, this girl was smart, she had been accepted into medical school and nobody just tosses an education they spent years on out the window for nothing. There had to be a reason and Sam believed he had figured it out.

Like him, she had left out of revenge. Earlier, she mentioned her uncle was a hunter. She hadn't mentioned her parents at all, so perhaps they weren't in the picture. Maybe she left medical school because something happened to them and she wanted revenge.

"Really, doc, you thought we'd go all Salem witch trials on you?" Dean smirked. "After I told you I didn't even finish high school?"

"It's different if a guy doesn't finish school, Abigail Williams" Rory said.

"Look, I don't give a damn if you didn't pass kindergarten," Dean told her. "That's not what this job is about and for your information, she actually _was_ a witch. I had a case involving her coven."

"For _your_ information, I've known that since I was ten," Rory replied before gazing out the front window.

A part of Sam believed that she was disappointed with herself for not becoming a doctor. Jess had been that way about certain things. If she didn't finish a paper on time or didn't land an internship, she felt embarrassed and no matter what Sam said didn't help. In order for Rory to let go of those feelings, she had to believe she wasn't a failure for not finishing something.

"Aren't you supposed to have hunter dyslexia," Dean remarked as she gave him an incredulous stare.

"That's not a real thing, first of all, and just because I'm a girl you think I don't know a thing or two about this," Rory countered.

"It's not that you're a girl, Rory. It's that you were pretty spooked back there," Sam posed. "Kinda made us think you didn't know what to do."

"I _was_ spooked, I almost cried, okay? He made me see disturbing things that I didn't want to see," Rory assured. "Doesn't mean I don't know what's what, though."

Dean pulled up near a log cabin surrounded by forestry and turned off the car. He momentarily looked at Sam before fixating on Rory. Sam didn't know what game his brother playing, but in his experiences, John had told them who they could trust or not and Dean followed his father blindly. It was odd for him to let a stranger into their lives so willingly.

"Rory, you ought to know that we're looking for our dad. We think that on this hunt, we might be able to find him," Dean explained. "He gave us coordinates in a journal that's in the glove compartment and we're following them."

Sam took note of an odd look on the girl's face. It was like she wasn't sure what to do or say. He understood her, she must have felt just as weird as he did with the way trio's lives had been smashed together by an astomi. There was something more, though, in that look. She was troubled by this job, scared. The way she had reacted to the astomi was enough for Sam to know. A part of him wanted to help her develop the skills she needed, but another part just wanted her to be gone already.

"You don't think it could have been that freak at the diner do you?" Rory questioned.

"No, these coordinates are very specific," Sam explained. "You mentioned that the astomi was living there for the smells the food gave off, right? So he wouldn't have been going off into the woods?"

"Right."

"Dad would have given us the coordinates of the diner in that case," Dean threw in.

"There could be a number of things out in these woods. Water demons, diwatas, drows, dryads," she listed off, surprising Sam. "We should go into the nearby town, maybe they have records of unusual occurrences? I can go Velma on this?"

Rory knew a lot about the hunter's world even though she feared it. All she had to do was overcome that fright in order to be good at killing the bad things. Maybe Dean had seen that when she spoke of the astomi and he really wanted to shape her into a proper hunter? At the same time, however, Sam had seen _the look _and was aware that sometimes Dean went to great lengths to sleep with a pretty girl.

"That is exactly what we're gonna do," Dean confirmed. "But first I want to see the park ranger."

"We can be research students from UC -Boulder," Sam suggested a possible cover.

"Environmental studies," Rory added.

"You mentioned you were coming here to camp, in these woods. Now, I'm thinking you were going out into the woods for a hunt," Dean brought up. "You sure you have no clue what could be out there?"

"My uncle, who happens to be psychic, called me a few days ago telling me to come out here because he was getting visions of people in trouble, so when Riff-Raff attacked me, I thought that was it," she explained, putting them back to square one.

"Well, let's go find out who this son of a bitch is," Dean enthusiastically said before opening the car door.

"The fact that this could end in death doesn't scare you?" Rory asked Sam.

"I can ask you the same thing," he glanced at her before staring out the window at his older brother, "It's always a possibility, Rory, but it's kind of personal for me."

Sam didn't want to talk about Jess with Rory, he just wanted to find his dad and kill the damn thing that hurt his girlfriend.

"So Black Water Ridge is pretty remote. It's cut off by these canyons here. Rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place," Sam informed Dean and Rory when they inside the cabin.

Rory was trying to corral the mix of feelings that were overwhelming her at the present moment. Finding out that the Winchester brother's were hunters wasn't that unbelievable. They were the definition of the word. They lived on the road and had an arsenal in the car. It also explained why Dean searched for one night stands, he was never in the same place for long. Not that it mattered to Rory, anyway. She wanted to hunt, that was why she had agreed to tag along with the brothers. If they could help her become a better hunter, good enough to find what killed her parents, she would do anything they wanted.

The encounter with the astomi, however, had scared her. Her entire life she had been told the worst they could do was create an illusion before they fed on a human and read a person's thoughts. Aidan never told her that they could _plant_ thoughts so painful that they caused headaches. He never told her what to do if she encountered one and _that_ made her angry. He told her just enough to scare her, but not enough to know what to do.

_Let it go, _Rory ordered herself, trying to focus on what was happening around her in the present.

She had two people she would be with for what, she predicted, would be a while. She hadn't expected to be thrown into an Impala with Dean and Sam, but that was a part of the hunter lifestyle. Teaming up with other hunters one met happened. Rory could remember days where she woke up to a stranger in her house and Aidan telling her that it was a friend who was helping him on a hunt. It must have been close to her thirteenth birthday when she begged Aidan to let her help him, but he saw her as someone he couldn't let grow up as a hunter.

"Dudes, check out the size of this friggin bear," Dean observed, staring at a photograph of a bear on the wall.

Rory smirked at how easily he distracted himself. That wasn't to say he wasn't incompetent, though. She liked the way he was able to slip his mind away from the case, it showed her he was at ease with this, that even if he was caught off guard by whatever was skulking around, he could handle it because he knew what to do. Rory, however, was listening to Sam's every word, standing beside him to see the map he was looking at. She wanted to be able to figure out what it was as quickly as possible and find out how to kill it so that the fear that was mounting up within her would go away.

"And a dozen grizzlies or so in the area. It's no nature hike, that's for sure," Sam continued on, walking up to his brother.

Rory internally groaned. Not only would she be dealing with something supernatural, but she would have to watch out for grizzly bears now too. Her day was turning into a fantastic one so far.

"You guys aren't planning on going out to Black Water Ridge by any chance?" a forest ranger came out from his office wearing a brown ranger uniform, causing Rory to turn around to face him.

"We're environmental study majors from UC –Boulder. Just working on a paper," Sam lied.

"Recycle man," Dean added, throwing up a fist in the air and letting out a chuckle, making Rory want to think of something clever to say.

"Reduce, reuse," she said, her brows crinkling together as she wondered how the brother's hadn't left her at the diner.

"Bull," the ranger replied.

"I think you're friends with that Hailey girl, right?" the ranger stopped Rory from continuing her rant.

Dean slightly tipped his head, "Yes. Yes we are, Ranger … Wilkinson."

"Well I'll tell you exactly what I told her, her brother filled out a back country permit saying he wouldn't be back until the twenty fourth, so it's not exactly a missing persons, now. Is it?" Ranger Wilkinson went on, talking about things Rory had no clue about.

"Is there any way to be sure? I mean haven't you seen that movie 'Human Trafficking'? The girl goes on vacation and gets kidnapped before her vacations up," Rory queried, seeing evidence that pointed to a hunt. There was a potential missing person in woods that two people, Aidan and Winchester Senior, believed to be plagued by something.

"You want to go out there, be my guest," Wilkinson replied, his hands on his hips and a judgmental look on his face. "Tell that girl to quit worryin."

"We will," Dean assured the ranger, who had turned away. "Boy that Hailey girl's quite a pistol, huh?"

"That is putting it mildly," Wilkinson responded, facing the trio.

"Actually, you know what would help, if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit," Dean told the ranger who took a sip from his coffee mug. "You know, so she could see her brother's return date."

"I'll get it," Wilkinson assured, giving them a curious look, as if he suspected something was out of place, before retreating into his office.

"Well he seemed nice," Rory commented, facing the brothers once again. Sam returned to examining the map while his brother stepped closer to Rory.

Dean snorted, " 'Human Trafficking'? Really?"

Rory rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air, "It was on paper view at a motel I was at. Okay? It's not exactly 'Batman Begins', but I was bored."

"You're gonna have to prove yourself after disclosing that to me," Dean remarked, a cheeky smile on his face.

"Yeah, I'm not watching porn," Rory stated hesitantly, wanting to make it clear where she drew the line at.

Dean's smile grew from cheeky to cocky as he whispered, "Good to know that you're thinking of porn when I'm around."

Rory felt her cheeks flush and she let out a nervous laugh. She was _not_ going to let this conversation become flirty and she was _not_ allowing him to think that he was making her swoon… because he wasn't…

"I-I uh," she searched her brain for a response that would sound clever and just as cocky as his. "I wasn't-"

"Sure, sure," he winked at her as Rory closed her eyes, wanting to kick herself a couple thousand times.

"Here it is," Wilkinson returned, handing a copy of the permit to Dean who thanked the ranger and began to head towards the door.

That night, after paying a visit to a Hailey Collins, questioning her about her brother, Tommy, the trio concluded that they would scour the coordinates Winchester Sr. left his sons the next day and found a motel for the night. The boys let Rory shower first, using the old "ladies first" liner. She didn't really see the point of it, since she would be hiking in the woods the next day, but did so anyway on account of her living arrangements changing from alone to with two men. _One of which, _she thought before she stopped herself.

When she emerged from the bathroom she found Sam on one bed, looking at his laptop while hitting the keys on the keyboard, the clacking noises reminded Rory of how she once wrote essays in college. Dean was sprawled out on the other bed, a look of pure ecstasy on his face as the bed vibrated. He must have put a quarter in the "Magic Fingers" machine that was on the nightstand beside the bed.

There was a small couch against the wall that Rory decided she would sleep on because she didn't want to make Sam or Dean change their routine just for her. She already felt as if she were intruding in on their lives enough.

Rory nestled herself in the corner seat of the couch, pulling a journal and pen out of her duffel bag. She bit her lip while deciding how to start off a new entry. She had been writing in a diary the moment she learned how to formulate words on paper. Aidan would buy her pink journals, the only girly thing he thought Rory needed, and encourage her to write how she felt, telling her it would help her take uncomfortable thoughts out of her mind as writing was a release. He had been correct, but when she went back to read what she had written she made herself laugh. The problems she had as a middle schooler seemed so trivial to the ones she faced now. She supposed that was how life worked. The older somebody became, new problems arose that made previous ones seem little. In first grade she had to figure out why she was being raised by her uncle, when she was thirteen nailing speaking presentations was her biggest worry, and now, she was hunting monsters.

"What're you doing?" Dean asked her, sitting up on the bed and making Sam glance at her.

She let out an unintelligible 'um' as she was caught off guard, "Writing in a journal."

"I thought you were a doc, doc?" Dean asked, smiling at his lame joke.

"Med. school student, among other things," Rory replied.

Sam's eyes darted to her duffel bag as if she had everything that made her Rory in it. He then looked back up at her, "What type of things?"

"A Johnny Depp fan, _Maroon 5_ too," she stated, wondering what else made her Rory York before quickly realizing she was fooling herself. She wasn't an interesting person, she was boring and lame.

"So that's me. What about you guys?" she quickly said.

"Wow, you have the crappiest taste," Dean remarked.

Rory scoffed, "I doubt yours is any better!"

"Nothing beats _ACDC_ or _Metallica."_

"Ugh, _yeah_, Adam Levine does!"

"Are you kidding?"

"His songs are from the heart!"

"His songs are meant to rank in dough from girls who think he's some pretty boy lover!"

"I'm gonna go get towels," Sam stood up in the midst of Dean and Rory's heated debate.

"What? Why?" the pair simultaneously inquired, looking at each other. "Stop that."

"Because you guys are doing _that_," Sam pointed out, closing the door behind him.

Rory arched her brow, looking at Dean who grinned at her, "You annoyed my brother enough to leave the room, good job."

Rory shook her head still upset that Adam Levine had been attacked, "You helped! You know what? I'm going to sleep."

She extended her legs on the couch, feeling awkward with Dean watching her do this.

"Take Sam's bed, or sleep in mine with me," Dean suggested, making her look at him as his lips curved in to a smile. Her cheeks turned red again and she bit her lip.

_He's a hunter, hit's on all the girls,_ she told herself, after considering taking up his offer for a split second. _You can think he's cute, but sleeping with him, isn't going to make you a better hunter._

"Goodnight, Dean."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Wendigo Dos**

Dean sat on the forest floor, listening to the woodland creatures, the crackling of a fire that Sam had started and Haley Collins whispering to her younger brother. Haley had hired a guide to take her and her younger brother, Ben, to search for their older brother, Tommy. Tommy Collins had come out to Black Water Ridge with his friends, but had stopped phoning Haley. The group had found a torn up tent, leading the brothers and Rory to believe they were being hunted by a Wendigo. Dean had acted quickly upon nightfall, enclosing the group in protective Anasazi symbols that would keep the monster out.

Dean watched the dark haired, green eyed Haley wrap an arm around Ben. She was comforting him, telling him it would be okay and that they would get out alive. It reminded him of his childhood with Sam, spending lonely nights in motel rooms. Sam wondering where their dad was while Dean had to assure him everything was fine, that their dad was a salesman. Then his little brother grew up and started asking questions, who their dad really was, why he was gone all the time. He _wasn't _Sammy anymore, he was a grown man hunting what killed his girl.

On the other side of the fire, he could see Rory sitting against a boulder, scribbling away in her journal that she had brought along in a backpack. Her hair was falling out of the ponytail she had put it up in, her eyes were closing as her hand moved across the page and the jeans she wore had torn at the knee from when she tripped over a log earlier. In the thirty some hours he had known Rory, Dean had tried to understand her. She wanted to hunt, but she was scared. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind, make slick come-backs, yet turned red when he suggested they sleep together. How could it be that someone could be determined, but fearful? Confident, but timid?

He stood up and walked over to her, deciding that she looked like she could use somebody to talk to. When he sat down beside her, she glanced up at him, her blue eyes full of fear. Her once porcelain face was now scraped in a few places, blood already dried to the open wounds. Dean wanted to take his hand and wipe it off of her, but her rejection to sleeping together had stung a bit and he didn't want to cross any boundaries today.

"What's the plan?" she asked. He could hear the strain she was putting in to make her voice sound steady.

"The plan?" he repeated. "I've gotta calm you down so you can think straight."

Rory half-smiled, "I ain't scared."

"You're terrified," he corrected her.

"Okay, maybe, but let's not tell _them_ that," she motioned to Haley and her brother.

"Why are you scared?" Dean queried. He wanted to help her see she could overcome her fear.

"It's a Wendigo. Not exactly a fluffy puppy."

"It's a killer, but you're smart Rory. You knew what the freak at the diner was," he pointed out, causing her to shrug.

"Anytime I get in a situation like this, there's a voice in my head and all it says is _you're going to die_. I can't beat it, I can't make it stop," she admitted to him.

"Did you ever meet a douche bag?"

"Yeah, his name's Dean Winchester," she remarked jokingly.

"I don't wear sunglasses inside," he smirked. "But I meant someone in college, made you feel like you couldn't do anything?"

"Professor Engel," she informed.

"What'd you do to pass his class?"

"I just followed all his rules, dotted my i's, crossed my t's. All of the demands he had for the class, I made sure I met them and then some," Rory explained.

"Just do the same thing here. You know the lore, you know these suckers' weaknesses, follow the rules," Dean suggested, noticing a look of realization wash over her face. "And what screws over the asshole we're dealing with?"

"Fire," she mumbled. "We've got to burn him to a crisp."

"Yahtzee," he smiled. "And you've got something the monster doesn't."

"What?"

"Me," Dean stated.

"That makes me feel worse," she jested, the strain in her voice gone.

"You're smiling, I musta done something right," he sent her a half smile as she shook her head with a relaxed grin spreading on her face.

"You should go talk to your brother, he looks pretty upset himself," Rory brought up.

Dean knew why his younger brother was upset. Their dad wasn't here, there wasn't any new news on his whereabouts. It was a dead end. Sam wanted to find John, the need to avenge Jessica ate at him and Dean could see it plain as day.

"Sammy's dealing with this thing," Dean told her.

"Go deal with him," she urged the hunter. "I would ask what's up, but I don't think he trusts me much."

"It's not you," he assured, standing up to talk to his brother.

"You wanna tell me what's going on in that freaky head of yours?" Dean asked Sam when he arrived at the log the younger Winchester was sitting on.

"Dean-"

"No you're not fine," Dean interrupted his brother. "You're like a powder keg, man. It's not like you. I'm supposed to be the belligerent one, remember? Doc can tell something's wrong and she's been with us for only two days."

"Dad's not here. I mean that much we know for sure, right? He would have left us a message, a sign, right?" Sam reasoned out loud, wanting Dean's input.

"Yeah, you're probably right. To tell you the truth, I don't think Dad's even been to Lost Creek," Dean confessed his suspicions.

"Then let's get these people back to town and let's hit the road. Go find Dad. I mean why are we still here?"

"This is why." Dean pulled out the leather bound journal his father had left for him in the town where he took on a job with Sam. "This book. This is Dad's single most valuable possession. _Everything_ he knows about every evil thing is in _here _and he's passed it onto us. I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know, _saving_ people, _hunting _things, the family business."

"That makes no sense. Why-Why doesn't he just call us? Why doesn't he tell us what he wants; tell us where he is?" Sam countered.

The broken relationship between Sam and their dad always struck a nerve with Dean. He was upset that he couldn't think of a solution to their problems. He was the oldest, he should know what to do. That's what their mother would have wanted. Wasn't it? She would have wanted him to bring peace among his family members, but he failed. She would have been disappointed and it killed Dean inside, he would never say it aloud, but knowing his deceased mother would be upset hurt him like hell.

Dean also had no idea where his dad was, but if he wanted him to hunt evil bastards, he would do it. It was an order and he wasn't going to go against it. That was why Dean never butted heads with his dad the way Sam did. He did everything John ordered him to do, no questions asked.

"I don't know, but the way I see it, Dad's given us a job to do and I intend to do it," he answered.

"Dean, no. I gotta find Dad, I gotta find Jessica's killer. It's the only thing I can think about, " Sam defied as Dean sighed.

"Sam, we're gonna find them, I promise. Listen to me, you've gotta prepare yourself. This search can take a while and all that anger? You can't let it build inside you because it'll destroy you."

"How do you do it? How does Dad do it?"

"Well for one," Dean looked at Hailey and her brother. "Them. I mean I figure our family is so screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others. Makes things a little more bearable. I'll tell you what else helps, killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can."

"Help me! Please! Help," a desperate voice became audible from the dark forest, but Dean couldn't tell from what direction it came from. He did know, however, that it was the Wendigo and not a helpless human.

"He's trying to draw us out. Just stay cool, stay put," Dean ordered everybody, who began to turn their heads, wondering if they should leave the confines of their Anasazi symbols.

He saw Rory inching towards the fire. He gave her points for ignoring the voice in her head and preparing herself in case the Wendigo came close enough for her to set it ablaze. He felt a certain pride in knowing he had helped her realize preparation was better than trepidation.

"Help! Help me!" the monster went on.

"Okay, that's no grizzly," Roy, the guide Hailey had hired to bring her out in the woods.

"It's okay, you'll be all right I promise," Hailey comforted her younger brother.

"It's here," Sam stated as Roy blindly shot his gun into the woods.

"I hit it," he cheered, running out of the circle and disappearing into the darkness.

"What the hell!?" Rory shouted.

"Roy, no! Roy!" Dean called after him before turning to Hailey and Ben. "Don't move!"

Rory opened her eyes, but darkness still surrounded her while terror filled her. She wasn't able to tell where she was, but she could remember being taken away by the creature and being dropped along the way. She felt the ground beneath her. It was dirt, she could feel it beneath her nails. She tried to stand up, but her right calve was in a lot of pain. She touched it only to be greeted by warm blood and a sting from the wound. Rory didn't know what to do, her leg was injured and she couldn't move, but if she stayed in the same place the wendigo would come back for her.

She dragged herself around the floor until she hit a wall behind her back. She heard footsteps and expected it to be the monster, coming back for her. Where was everybody else? She couldn't remember if anybody else had been taken, she either passed out from fear or had been knocked unconscious during that part. Her heart began to race even faster than it had been when she came to a moment ago.

_You're dead, _she thought, before regaining her focus. _No, you have to fight. _

She could hear the footsteps coming closer and she decided the only way out of this was to walk on her injured leg. Since the jeans she was wearing were already torn, she mustered all the strength she had in her arms to tear a piece off to make a gag for herself. She bit into the gag and dug her nails into the dirt as she pushed herself up, her leg stinging so much that she could feel it in her chest. The burn from the wound was indescribable and she was positive she should have been carried out if it was in that amount of pain, but Rory had no options and she wanted to live.

Using the wall as a guide, she walked in the opposite direction from where the footsteps were coming. With every inch she moved forward, the agony increased, but she ignored it. She pretended that leg didn't exist, she told herself pain was a state of mind and if it weren't for the receptors in her nervous system, she wouldn't even feel it. _Outside the woods there is a nice place where you can fix yourself, _she told herself to calm her anxieties. _Find Dean, you'll be safe. _

She could hear the steps more clearly and she bit the gag to keep herself from screaming as she forced herself to speed walk. Ignoring the pain, she made significant progress, walking four feet forward before collapsing.

_No, _she cried in her head, hearing the footsteps directly behind her and closing her eyes.

"Rory?" she heard Dean's voice as she opened her eyes, meeting his.

"Dean, where were you?" she nearly cried after taking out the gag from her mouth and noticing he had a flare gun in his hand.

"It dragged me and Hailey here too," he explained. "I thought you were it, but then I saw you fall."

"I can't walk," she informed. "I mean I can, but I'm pretty sure if my leg is losing this much blood, I shouldn't."

Dean glanced at her leg before making a face, "That is bad."

"Really? I went to school for this and I had no idea," she replied, making him grin as he grabbed her around the waist. If she hadn't been so terrified and in so much damn pain, she would have appreciated the fact that this man was holding her by the waist.

"Well I didn't need any college and I knew that, so what does that say about you?" he remarked, helping her to her feet.

"Like I said I dropped out," she shrugged, realizing Sam and the others were missing. "Where the hell is Sam?"

"We split up after Sam found us. I'm thinking this dick left you out here because of your leg. Thought it would be fun to hunt someone who was helpless," Dean explained.

"Let's find Sam, then," she stated as they moved forward.

The pace at which they moved wasn't something to brag about, but it was a hell of a lot faster than when she was clinging to the wall and she wasn't causing further damage to her leg this time.

"This would be a lot more romantic if you weren't bleeding and I wasn't holding a gun," Dean said after a few steps forward.

Rory felt warm inside. Even after seeing her all sweaty, bloody and frantic, he still wanted to flirt with her. _Stop, he's not flirting with you because he likes you, he's flirting with you because he wants to get into your pants!_

"I've only known you for a day and I don't have you pegged as a romantic type of guy," she whispered.

"What do you have me pegged as?" he asked. "George Clooney type of guy?"

She scoffed as they neared a curve in the tunnels "If by George Clooney you mean Charlie Sheen, then yes."

"I'm not-"

"Get behind me!" Sam's voice came from around the bend. She noticed the alertness in Dean's face. The way his eyes suddenly searched what was in front of him. She could see how the fact that Sam was in danger worried him.

Rory knew Dean would never make it if he were helping her so she let go of him, "Go, it's obviously with them, I'll make it there on my own."

"I can't jus-"

"Go!" she urged. Dean ran around the bend as Rory decided she would hop on one leg. It was slow, but she wasn't in impending danger or hurting her leg any more.

When she finally did reach the group, she arrived just in time to see the monster burn. It's freakishly long arms were sprawled out on the floor, it's carcass burning and the repulsive smell of searing flesh filled her nostrils. She had survived her first hunt with the boys, she had survived a wendigo, for crying out loud. It had killed the guide, Roy, after he shot at it. It had dragged her, Dean and Haley Collins to its lair. She had been terrified and there was a little voice that told her she would be eaten, that Aidan would never find her bones and that there would be no funeral for her. She recalled closing her eyes, telling it to shut up, telling it that it's words couldn't kill her, only the wendigo could, but not before the group killed it.

Staring at it now, watching it die gave her relief, she was happy it was dying. _She_ had lived and _it_ had died. Had it been Dean's encouragement that made her feel that way, as if she had won? 'You know the lore, you know its weaknesses, stick to that,' he had told her. She had reminded herself of his words, she had trusted _herself._ With the wendigo, died a part of the scary voice that whispered nasty things to her, forced images of her laying dead on the floor, her skin paler than it already was with blue lips, and blood dripping out of her mouth. It would take a while until she stopped listening to that voice completely, but for now she would celebrate the victory she earned that day.

"You alright?" Dean asked her, breaking her thoughts from the wendigo.

"No," she admitted, looking up at him with a smile. "But I'll get there."

"There's quite a hike back, so why don't we start heading back?" he suggested to everybody before grabbing her by the waist to help her walk.

Working their way out of the woods, Rory tried to stay quiet. She, once again, was experiencing a rush of emotion. She was happy, yet sad and scared. She helped kill a monster, but Aidan hadn't been the one to teach her how to do it. Her uncle should have taught her this when she was a teenager, not two men she met on the side of the road.

_Two men, one of which makes you happy, but brings incredible sadness, _Aidan's words echoed in her mind, feeling Dean right next to her as an even older memory resurfaced in her mind that she struggled to push away. _It's him. He's got the same hair color, same eyes. That's him, Rory. _

"What's going on?" Sam asked as he approached the pair.

"Nothing important," she answered, knowing he was asking about her leg. There was something else that was important, though, at least to her and realizing who Dean was… Rory knew what type of hell would be raised now.

"Your leg looks pretty bad," he remarked. "Did Dean make a mistake and attack you in the tunnels?"

"I don't make mistakes!" Dean interjected.

"Do you guys always poke this much fun at each other?" Hailey, who was now helping the brother she found in tunnels walk, joined in.

"I've known these guys for since yesterday morning and I already fantasized about the different ways I could make Dean cry," she told the other woman.

"That bad, huh?" Hailey asked.

"Hey, maybe we should call an ambulance over to where we parked the Impala. That way we don't have to listen to Dean bitch about blood on the seat," Sam suggested changing the subject as he pulled out his phone.

"Glad to hear you've fantasized about me," Dean whispered to Rory as soon as Sam put the phone to his ear and began talking.

"I wouldn't be too happy, nobody is naked and it all ends with you losing money or your car or there not being any pie," Rory remarked.

"And I thought you weren't paying any attention to me," he sent her one of his half smiles, making her wonder if he was helping her walk because it gave him an excuse to put his hand on her.

"You're just an open book, Dean," she replied.

_He even has the same mannerisms as him, Rory!_

"What's wrong?" Dean suddenly asked, making her realize she must have had a worried expression on her face.

"I can't say," she told him. "I like you and Sam, but in my experiences, when I confided in someone, it always came back to bite me in the ass."

"I know the feeling," he mumbled.

"We should get burgers today," she suggested, changing the subject in order to avoid being tempted to tell him what was on her mind. "I would _kill _to have a burger with a nice pile of fries."

"Deal," he agreed with a smile.

_The same smile as him,_ she thought. _It has to be _him! _There just isn't that many coincidences!_

Rory bit her lip, she would have to call her uncle, ask him what he saw in a particular vision. Two men, Sam and Dean, one of which would make her happy and sad. Every part of her knew who it was. How? The older Dean Winchester had told her himself.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 : The Future Affects the Past**

**December 4****th****, 2005**

"This is Aidan York, leave a name and phone number," Aidan said in his voicemail as Rory sighed, closing her flip-phone in defeat.

It had been twenty four days since she decided to live with two guys in an old Chevy Impala (which she had to admit, had been on impulse), seventeen since a panic attack and a week since she had something hot to eat. In the twenty four days she had been with the Winchesters, they had worked two jobs together. The first had been the Wendigo, the second was a ghost of a boy who had been drowned in a lake and was seeking revenge. All that had happened in twenty four days and, yet, she had not spoken to her uncle. This worried Rory because it was so unlike Aidan to ignore her phone calls.

She desperately needed to speak with him, about her future because of an incident in her past involving Dean, or someone who was the spitting image of him, but older. Rory must have been sixteen years old when this event occurred. She had been on her porch, flipping through pages of magazines in hopes of finding Johnny Depp in it when a man with green eyes and dirty blonde hair, wearing a gray jacket with old jeans and biker boots walked up her stairs, asking if she was Aurora York…

"_I will not be buying _you_ again," Rory threw a gossip magazine on the floor boards of her porch upon discovery that the magazine did not have any pictures of Johnny Depp in it. _

_She began to look through another one when the screen door opened and Aidan emerged from inside their house. He was wearing a white dress shirt and nice jeans. He had somehow managed to make his dark, curly hair appear elegant. As a bonus he had shaved off his beard that made him look like a lumber jack. In Rory's opinion, he looked good, and youthful. People often mistook them for siblings, Aidan was only thirty six and blessed with genes that made him look much younger. However, they were not brother and sister, but uncle and niece. _

"_Either you are going to lie to some poor family to find out information for a job or you actually have a date," she remarked, returning her attention to the magazine. _

"_I'm meeting Sarah," he clarified, making her eyes widen in surprise. _

_Aidan rarely went out on dates. The last girl he had been in a relationship had left him when he decided that he would adopt the newborn Rory after her parents died. Her issues revolved around something to the nature of being too young to be a mother. Rory scoffed at the idea. Nobody would ever be the woman her mother had been, sacrificing her life for her infant's. The girl Aidan had dated probably didn't understand the meaning of sacrifice. It was dying for your children, giving up your dreams to raise a kid who wasn't yours, it was babysitting your neighbor's kid when he went out hunting for weeks on end. _

"_Wow," Rory remarked. "Is it actually a date? Or is it a date to find out information about a job?"_

"_Aurora Elyse York," Aidan scolded her. "You honestly think so little of me?"_

"_Just asking," she defended herself, flipping the page and finding a picture of Johnny Depp she liked. _

"_I'll be home by midnight," he informed her. "You know the rules. Bows and arrows in my room, salt's in the pantry right by the holy water and the gun's are underneath the floorboard that's covered by the couch. I don't want you touching them unless you have to, you could hurt yourself."_

"_I think the salt you mixed in with the concrete to build the steps with will be enough to keep the monsters out. There will be a day, Uncle Aida, when you decide to teach me how to protect myself," she remarked. "Now go before this girl thinks you stood her up"_

_Rory continued cutting out pictures of her favorite actor after Aidan left. There was a chill in the air, but then again, it was the middle of October in Detroit. She noticed a man walking down her block. He wore a gray jacket and jeans, but not the nice kind that her uncle had been wearing. His were old and worn out. He had handsome features for an older man, dirty blonde hair, a square jaw, and his body, from what she could tell, was in better shape than the top jock's at her school. He reminded her of some of the hunters her uncle spent time with. _

"_Rory?" he asked from the sidewalk, his voice was raspy. He spoke as if he knew her, like they had been friends separated by the unthinkable, never knowing what had happened to one another until now._

"_Um," she let out, taken aback. "Yeah."_

"_Oh thank God," he began as confusion fell over her face. "I thought Cas sent me too far back, but then I saw the crop tops. Come on, we've gotta go." _

"_I don't even know who you are," she brought up, noticing he was able to walk up the stairs, crossing out the possibility of him being a ghost or demon. _

"_I forgot," he mumbled to himself._

_Rory arched her brow, as her heart began to pound in fear. She couldn't let him know she was an easy target, so she had to put on a brave face. That much she had learned from Aidan. _

"_Did you forget I don't know who you are," she shot at him. _

"_I'm a hunter," he divulged, holding up his hands, calming her down a bit. "You're in danger, Rory and I'm here to fix that."_

_She scoffed, "My uncle wouldn't be out on a date if I were in danger."_

"_Rory, your life's on the line sixteen years from today because of something that happens when you're sixteen," the man told her without any attempt to ease the information into the conversation. "And I don't have much time to save you, but I need your help."_

"_Are you psychic like him?" she asked, unfazed by his prediction. She was used to having Aidan tell her what would happen, then having it come true. Psychics were real and it was annoying to have one in the family. _

"_I'm your husband," he said, making her want to run inside the house and call Aidan for help, but she couldn't because she didn't want to ruin his chances with a girl. "Sixteen years from now. Look, you're in a coma and Cas, an angel, sent me back to this time because he knows something happened this year that's killing you later."_

_Rory didn't want to believe him. How could a man go back in time? How could he stand there and tell her angels existed? She didn't want to believe there was a Heaven that didn't care if she had a mother and father, that didn't care she was an orphan._

"_You're lying angels don't exist, God isn't real," she argued, causing him to arch his brow. "What?"_

"_Nothing, it's just, you're the most spiritual person I know," he told her sitting down on her steps, a kind of sadness crossing his face. "Any time I got angry at Sammy or hated myself more than anything, you were always there saying there was someone watching over us." _

_While Rory didn't know who Sammy was and still thought the guy was a nut job, the way he looked when he spoke did help his case. It was sincere, like he believed it. _

"_I'm an atheist," she told him, positive that her view point wouldn't change. "There's nothing out there."_

_He smirked, "You're just as stubborn when you get older."_

"_I'm not stubborn. I'm sure of myself."_

"_Stubborn."_

"_And you're arguing with a girl half your age!"_

"_I was eighteen in 1997, so technically you're two years younger than me."_

"_Newsflash it is 1997 and you're thirty some years old, so you're twice as old as me," Rory countered, sitting down beside the guy, who pulled out a photograph from his jacket pocket. _

"_Thirty four," he handed the Polaroid to her. "That's us before we got married."_

_Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open when she saw the photograph. There he was, sitting on a large cooler with an older version of Rory on his lap. Her hair was longer, lighter and curly. She wore a summery maxi dress, her arms wrapped around his neck and her head thrown back as she laughed at something. There was a black car near them, she couldn't tell what type of car it was, though, because it was cut off in the picture. She felt everything go one hundred and eighty in that moment. Whatever was to happen in her life, she had this guy to rely on. _

"_You're really from the future? I'm really dying? Angels are real? _We're_ really married?" she asked in disbelief, before realizing she had a shot at finding out her future. "Do we have kids!? How old are they!? Where do we live!? What the hell is your name!?"_

"_Slow down ICarly, as much as I want to tell you everything, I can't. You shouldn't miss out on your life expecting me. That's why I'm not telling you my real name," he told her, unfazed at her ability to rant, as if he were used to it. "We meet and you like me, _a lot. _I'm too much of a jerk to bring it up with you, give you a chance until something happens, something bad. Even after I tried to fix it, you needed time and then it just sort of happened."_

_Rory felt ridiculous sitting on her porch, talking to her husband who was from the future and whose name she wasn't going to find out . She was sixteen and all she wanted to do was to stalk the hell out of Johnny Depp, but her thirty four year old husband was telling her minor details about how they shacked up. _

"_Okay, fine," Rory agreed. "But I'm calling you John for now and who's ICarly?"_

_She noticed how he winced at the mention of that name, making her wonder why he didn't like it._

"_It's a T.V show," he glanced at her with a slight grin, "You ready to save yourself, doc?"_

_She felt her face contort into the one she made when she was lost, "What?"_

"_You- never mind, let's go," he urged her standing up and extending his hand to help her do the same. _

_She smirked, "I'm going out on a limb and praying that you're not a serial killer."_

"_Thought you were an atheist?"_

"_Figure of speech," she mumbled, following him down her block, not knowing what to expect, but excitement rushing through her veins. _

"So my brother came to you when you were sixteen and he was thirty-ish?" Sam asked, approaching a lawn chair that belonged to their motel.

Over the course of the twenty some days, the trio had grown close together. They didn't trust Rory completely, but she wasn't planning on falling off a table into their arms either. They were slowly making their way to a closer friendship, though. She and Dean had moments where they spoke about their past (she avoided the part about her thinking he was John, of course). They weren't deep, heart wrenching, I-Can't-Talk –To-Anybody-Else-But-You conversations. They were the type where the pair talked about the monsters Dean had hunted, why Rory liked to write or what music they were into.

Rory had learned that Sam was good at listening, he almost enjoyed listening to her problems. She had discovered a couple days after the Wendigo hunt, when the three of them stopped in a hotel for the night and she had made the mistake of answering a phone call from Tom. Dean had been in the shower when Rory allowed herself argue with the guy. Sam had overheard it and just listened to her talk about how scummy the ex-flame was. She trusted Sam enough now to tell him about the man from when she was sixteen years old, she was hoping he would tell her she was being silly, that Dean was too much of a womanizer to settle down.

"Sam, I know how it sounds, I don't believe it," she explained. "But they look so much alike, or you know, what Dean would look like if he got older and he had a picture."

"How did he travel back in time if it is really Dean?" Sam asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

"He said it was an angel," Rory revealed.

"Angels are real?"

"Dude, I don't know. Have you ever met anybody who's seen one?"

"No," Sam answered with a shrug. "But why choose something that's so questionable?"

"And to the sixteen year old me, impossible," Rory stated.

Sam let out a chuckle, "_You_ didn't believe in angels when you were sixteen? I catch you praying every night, Rory."

She stood from the lawn chair to stretch her legs, "I used to believe it wasn't real."

"Even with all the crazy things you knew about?"

"Even more so because of the crazy things I knew about. I guess I just thought that because these monsters existed, it meant that God couldn't be real. He would have protected people from monsters and yet they were being slaughtered."

"What changed?"

"John, that's what I called the guy who I think is Dean, kept talking about how much faith I had, so I went to a church. There was a priest there and after talking with him about my life, excluding all the crazy. He kinda helped me through whatever it was that made me a disbeliever," she confided in Sam. "I went from not believing to needing God. I still have doubts from time to time, but there's always a small part of me that holds on to hope and wins."

"I pray every night," Sam began. "And sometimes I got stuck, but with every question I had, I always got an answer. Except lately, things have been.."

Sam trailed off, a far off look in his eyes told Rory he was lost deep in thought.

"Have been?"

"Hard," he slowly continued on. "My mom was killed by something that set her on fire when I was a baby. It's what made my dad become a hunter and I hated the life, Rory. I _just_ wanted to be normal. I didn't want there to be monsters, I didn't want to die, so I went to college, started dating this _amazing_ girl named Jess. My dad told me to never come back when I left and I didn't. The first two years, Dean tried calling, but then stopped and a month ago, a week before we met you actually, he shows up in the middle of the night telling me dad's missing. I went with him, we put down a ghost in the last town our dad was in and I came back the night before my law school interview only to find Jess pinned to the ceiling, then set on fire the same way my mom was. That thing is the reason Dean and I are hunting. I have to kill it, Rory, I have to for Jess."

Sam's story tugged at her heart and it made her want to share about her parents, but she couldn't. Not yet. She could only imagine the dreadful feeling he had when he saw his girlfriend like that, the hopelessness he had gone through in those moments. The one person he wanted to be safe, to protect, had been killed in front of his eyes and there had been nothing he could do to prevent it. Rory may have never met her parents, but the constant "what if they were here now" plagued her. There was a need to "get even" with the thing that did them in.

"Sam, I'm sorry," escaped her.

"It's okay," Sam assured her, opening the door to their room. "We better wake Dean up, it's 5:45."

"I'm gonna sit out for a while," she told him. "The weather's nice this morning."

Sam sent her a smile before closing the door behind himself and she sat back down in the lawn chair, taking her cell phone out to check if Aidan had called. Nothing. No missed call, no voice mail and no text.

_What the hell is happening?_

"What time is it," Dean threw off his covers when Sam walked into their room.

His brother was in nothing but a white t-shirt and his boxer-briefs. Sam didn't care about his brother's outfit choice, but he wondered if it made Rory feel awkward. Of course, she would never say it did, just like she never threw out either brother from their beds at the motels they've stayed in. Dean had to take up residence on the couch in their motel after their first week together so that she would sleep in a bed. Rory had argued for Dean to sleep on the bed out of generosity, so Sam proposed that they switch at every motel. Two out of the three would have rights to a bed while the third had to sleep on the couch. It was fair and nobody could complain about being deprived of a bed.

"It's about 5:45."

"In the morning?"

"Yep."

"Where does the day go?" Dean sarcastically remarked, taking the cup of coffee Sam was handing him. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

"Yeah, I grabbed a couple of hours," Sam lied, taking a seat on the opposite bed.

"Liar, cause I was up at three and you were watching that George Foreman infomercial," Dean posed. "When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?"

"I don't know. A little while, I guess. It's not a big deal."

Lie. It was a big deal. Sam was tired, he wanted to sleep, but he couldn't. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Jessica. On the ceiling, bleeding from the belly and burning. If it wasn't that, then she was rising from her grave, blaming him for not protecting her, for not being there for her.

"Yeah, it is," Dean argued.

Sam sighed, he didn't want to shove his problems onto his brother, or Rory for that matter.

"Look, I appreciate your concern-"

"Oh, I'm not concerned about you. It's your job to keep my ass alive, so I need you sharp. Seriously, are you still having nightmares about Jess?"

"Yeah, but it's not just her. It's everything. I just forgot, you know? This job - man, it gets to you."

"Well, you can't let it. You can't bring it home like that."

"So, what? All this - it never keeps you up at night," Sam inquired of his older brother who shook his head in response. "Never? You're never afraid?"

Sam pulled out the knife Dean was hiding beneath his pillow. It was big, shiny and if anybody else saw it, they would have run the opposite direction to get away from Dean.

"So what's this?" he asked Dean, holding the knife up.

"That's not fear," his brother answered. "That's precaution."

"Okay," Sam rolled his eyes as Dean turned towards their window to see Rory scribbling away in her journal.

"How long has _she_ been out there?"

"Since four thirty," Sam answered, wanting to avoid telling Dean about Rory's history, about how his brother travelled into the past and would possibly be married to the girl in the future. He was choosing to keep it from his brother because it wasn't his story to tell, it was Rory's.

"What do you think she writes about?"

"How she misses home," Sam shrugged. "She didn't grow up like us."

"What're you talking about? Her uncle was a hunter and he raised her, didn't he?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, but she told me he left her with a neighbor he trusted. She never left home, she grew up with people she knew, had time to memorize the street names in her neighborhood," Sam pointed out. "She misses home."

"Then why is she on this crusade? She's scared of monsters, misses home, hasn't talked to that uncle of hers in a few weeks," Dean pointed out .

"Because she's strong, Dean," Sam said. "And I think it may have something to do with her parents. She never talks about them, so what happened?"

"Give her time, Sammy," Dean replied, his ring tone becoming audible before he could add anything else. "Hello?"


End file.
